The Paris Codex (also known as the Codex Peresianus and Codex Pérez)[2] is one of three surviving generally accepted pre-Columbian Maya books dating to the Postclassic Period of Mesoamerican chronology (c. 900–1521 AD).[3] The document is very poorly preserved and has suffered considerable damage to the page edges, resulting in the loss of some of the text. The codex largely relates to a cycle of thirteen 20-year k'atuns and includes details of Maya astronomical signs.

The Paris Codex is generally considered to have been painted in western Yucatán, probably at Mayapan. It has been tentatively dated to around 1450, in the Late Postclassic period (AD 1200–1525). More recently an earlier date of 1185 has been suggested, placing the document in the Early Postclassic (AD 900-1200). However, the astronomical and calendrical information within the codex are consistent with a Classic period cycle from AD 731 to 987 indicating that the codex may be a copy of a much earlier document.

Contents

The codex consists of a strip measuring 140 centimetres (55 in) long by 23.5 centimetres (9.3 in) high, folded into 11 sheets painted on both sides, forming 22 pages total.[1] An additional sheet is believed to have once existed, but became lost by the 19th century.[5] The Paris Codex is very poorly preserved, comprising a number of fragments;[6] the lime plaster coating of the codex is badly eroded at the edges, resulting in the destruction of its hieroglyphs and images except in the center of its pages.[7]

Page 3 of the Paris Codex, displaying the typical combination of a standing and a seated figure

The content of the codex is mainly ritual in nature, and one side of the codex contains the patron deities and associated rituals for a cycle of thirteen k'atuns (a 20-year Maya calendrical cycle).[8] One fragment contains animals that represent astronomical signs along the ecliptic including a scorpion and a peccary;[9] fragments of this Maya "zodiac" are depicted on two pages of the codex.[10] Some pages of the codex are marked with annotations made with Latin characters.[1]

On one side of the codex the general format of each page largely follows the same arrangement, with a standing figure on the left hand side and a seated figure on the right hand side. Each page also contains the ajaw day glyph combined with a numerical coefficient, in each case representing a date marking the final day of a calendrical cycle. In spite of the poor state of preservation of the document, enough text has survived to demonstrate that in the case of the Paris Codex, the main series of dates correspond to k'atun-endings, allowing for the reconstruction of some of the lost date glyphs in the text. The seated figures are each associated with a sidereal glyph indicating that they represent the ruling deity of each k'atun.[1]

The reverse of the codex is more varied in nature and includes a section dedicated to a calendrical cycle ruled by Chaac, the god of rain. A set of two pages illustrates the days of the tzolk'in 260-day cycle that correspond to the beginning of the solar year over a period of 52 years (a cycle of the Calendar Round). The final two pages of the codex depict a series of thirteen animals that represent the so-called "zodiac".[1]

In common with the other two generally accepted Maya codices (the Dresden Codex and the Madrid Codex), the document is likely to have been created in Yucatán;[7] English Mayanist J. Eric S. Thompson thought it likely that the Paris Codex was painted in western Yucatán and dated to between AD 1250 and 1450.[11] Bruce Love noted the similarities between a scene on page 11 of the codex and Stela 1 at Mayapan; based on this he proposed that the codex was produced in Mayapan around 1450.[12] However, further analysis of the stela in question suggests an earlier date of 1185 indicating that the calendrical information may refer to an earlier k'atun cycle than the one suggested by Love. The astronomical and calendrical information within the Paris Codex are consistent with a Classic period cycle from AD 731 to 987 indicating that the codex may be a copy of a much earlier document.[13]

The Paris Codex came to light in 1859 when Léon de Rosny found it in a basket of old papers in the corner of a chimney in the Bibliothèque Impériale in Paris.[14] The codex had apparently been examined some twenty-five years earlier by scholars and had been catalogued but it is not known how the document found its way to Paris.[15] The document was found with a piece of paper attributing it to the collection of colonial Maya documents assembled by Juan Pío Pérez.[2]

1.
Amate
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Amate is a type of bark paper that has been manufactured in Mexico since the precontact times. It was used primarily to create codices, Amate paper production never completely died, nor did the rituals associated with it. It remained strongest in the rugged, remote areas of northern Puebla. Spiritual leaders in the village of San Pablito, Puebla were described as producing paper with magical properties. Foreign academics began studying this use of amate in the mid-20th century. Through this and other innovations, amate paper is one of the most widely available Mexican indigenous handicrafts, Amate paper has a long history. The development of paper in Mesoamerica parallels that of China and Egypt and it is not known exactly where or when paper making began in Mesoamerica. The oldest known amate paper dates back to 75 CE and it was discovered at the site of Huitzilapa, Jalisco. Huitzilapa is a shaft tomb culture site located northwest of Tequila Volcano near the town of Magdalena, the crumpled piece of paper was found in the southern chamber of the sites shaft tomb, possibly associated with a male scribe. Rather than being produced from Trema micrantha, from which modern amate is made, iconography dating from the period contains depictions of items thought to be paper. For example, Monument 52 from the Olmec site of San Lorenzo Tenochtitlán illustrates an individual adorned with ear pennants of folded paper. The oldest known surviving book made from amate paper may be the Grolier Codex, arguments from the 1940s to the 1970s have centered on a time of 300 CE of the use of bark clothing by the Maya people. Ethnolinguistic studies lead to the names of two villages in Maya territory that relate the use of paper, Excachaché and Yokzachuún. Anthropologist Marion mentions that in Lacandones, in Chiapas, the Maya were still manufacturing and using bark clothing in the 1980s, however, according researcher Hans Lenz, this Maya paper was likely not the amate paper known in later Mesoamerica. The Mayan language word for book is hun, Amate paper was used most extensively during the Triple Alliance Empire. This paper was manufactured in over 40 villages in territory controlled by the Aztecs and this amounted to about 480,000 sheets annually. Most of the production was concentrated in the state of Morelos. This paper was assigned to the sector, to be used as gifts on special occasions or as rewards for warriors

2.
Maya script
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The earliest inscriptions found which are identifiably Maya date to the 3rd century BCE in San Bartolo, Guatemala. Maya writing was in use throughout Mesoamerica until the Spanish conquest of the Maya in the 16th and 17th centuries. Maya writing used logograms complemented by a set of syllabic glyphs, modern Mayan languages are written using the Latin alphabet rather than Maya script. It is now thought that the codices and other Classic texts were written by scribes, usually members of the Maya priesthood, there is also some evidence that the script may have been occasionally used to write Mayan languages of the Guatemalan Highlands. However, if languages were written, they may have been written by Ch’olti’ scribes. Mayan writing consisted of an elaborate set of glyphs, which were laboriously painted on ceramics, walls or bark-paper codices, carved in wood or stone. Carved and molded glyphs were painted, but the paint has rarely survived, about 90% of Mayan writing can now be read with varying degrees of certainty, enough to give a comprehensive idea of its structure. The Mayan script was a logosyllabic system, individual glyphs could represent either a word or a syllable, indeed, the same glyph could often be used for both. For example, the calendaric glyph MANIK’ was also used to represent the syllable chi, there was polyvalence in the other direction as well, different glyphs could be read the same way. For example, half a dozen apparently unrelated glyphs were used to write the common third person pronoun u-. However, in the case of Mayan, each tended to correspond to a noun or verb phrase such as his green headband. Also, glyphs were sometimes conflated, where an element of one glyph would replace part of a second, conflation occurs in other scripts, For example, in medieval Spanish manuscripts the word de of was sometimes written Ð. Another example is the ampersand which is a conflation of the Latin et, in place of the standard block configuration, Mayan was also sometimes written in a single row or column, L, or T shapes. These variations most often appeared when they would fit the surface being inscribed. For example, the logogram for fish fin, came to represent the syllable ka, for example, balam jaguar could be written as a single logogram, BALAM, complemented phonetically as ba-BALAM, or BALAM-ma, or ba-BALAM-ma, or written completely phonetically as ba-la-ma. Phonetic glyphs stood for simple consonant-vowel or bare-vowel syllables, when these final consonants were sonorants or gutturals they were sometimes ignored, but more often final consonants were written, which meant that an extra vowel was written as well. This was typically an echo vowel that repeated the vowel of the previous syllable and that is, the word fish fin would be underspelled ka or written in full as ka-ha. A more complex spelling is ha-o-bo ko-ko-no-ma for they are the guardians, a minimal set is, ba-ka ba-ki ba-ku = ba-ke ba-ke-le Despite depending on consonants which were frequently not written, the Mayan voice system was reliably indicated

3.
Maya codices
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This sort of paper was generally known by the word āmatl in Nahuatl, and by the word huun in Mayan. The folding books are the products of professional scribes working under the patronage of such as the Tonsured Maize God. The Maya developed their huun-paper around the 5th century, which is roughly the time that the codex became predominant over the scroll in the Roman world. However, Maya paper was more durable and a writing surface than papyrus. The codices have been named for the cities where they eventually settled, the Dresden codex is generally considered the most important of the few that survive. There were many books in existence at the time of the Spanish conquest of Yucatán in the 16th century, however most were destroyed by the Conquistadors, in particular, many in Yucatán were ordered destroyed by Bishop Diego de Landa in July 1562. Such codices were the primary records of Maya civilization, together with the many inscriptions on stone monuments. However, their range of subject matter in all likelihood embraced more topics than those recorded in stone and buildings, however, not all were unaware of the books value, Fr. The last codices destroyed were those of Nojpetén, Guatemala in 1697, with their destruction, access to the history of the Maya and opportunity for insight into some key areas of Maya life was greatly diminished. There are only four codices whose authenticity is beyond doubt and these are, The Dresden Codex also known as the Codex Dresdensis, The Madrid Codex, also known as the Tro-Cortesianus Codex, The Paris Codex, also known as the Peresianus Codex. The Grolier Codex, also known as the Sáenz Codex, the Dresden Codex is held in the Sächsische Landesbibliothek, the state library in Dresden, Germany. It is the most elaborate of the codices, and also an important specimen of Maya art. Many sections are ritualistic, others are of an astrological nature, the codex is written on a long sheet of paper that is screen-folded to make a book of 39 leaves, written on both sides. It was probably written just before the Spanish conquest, somehow it made its way to Europe and was bought by the royal library of the court of Saxony in Dresden in 1739. The only exact replica, including the huun, made by a German artist is displayed at the Museo Nacional de Arqueología in Guatemala City, since October,2007. Between 1880 and 1900, Dresden librarian Ernst Förstemann succeeded in deciphering the Maya numerals, subsequent studies have decoded these astronomical almanacs, which include records of the cycles of the Sun and Moon, including eclipse tables, and all of the naked-eye planets. The Serpent Series, pp. 61–69, is an ephemeris of these phenomena that uses a base date of 1.18.1.8.0.16 in the prior era. The Codex was discovered in Spain in the 1860s, it was divided into two parts of differing sizes that were found in different locations, the Codex receives its alternate name of the Tro-Cortesianus Codex after the two parts that were separately discovered

4.
Mesoamerican chronology
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Mesoamerican chronology divides the history of pre-Columbian Mesoamerica into several periods, the Paleo-Indian, the Archaic, the Preclassic or Formative, the Classic, and the Postclassic. However, this applies to other pre-Columbian Mesoamerican civilizations as well. 3500-2000 BCE During the Archaic Era agriculture was developed in the region, Late in this era, use of pottery and loom weaving became common, and class divisions began to appear. Many of the technologies of Mesoamerica in terms of stone-grinding, drilling. 1800 BCE–200 CE During the Preclassic Era, or Formative Period, large-scale ceremonial architecture, writing, cities, the Olmec civilization developed and flourished at such sites as La Venta and San Lorenzo Tenochtitlán. 200–1000 CE The Classic Era was dominated by numerous independent city-states in the Maya region and also featured the beginnings of political unity in central Mexico, regional differences between cultures grew more manifest. The city-state of Monte Albán dominated the Valley of Oaxaca until the late Classic, highly sophisticated arts such as stuccowork, architecture, sculptural reliefs, mural painting, pottery, and lapidary developed and spread during the Classic era. In the Maya region, numerous city states such as Tikal, Calakmul, Copán, Palenque, Uxmal, Cobá, each of these polities was generally independent, although they often formed alliances and sometimes became vassal states of each other. The main conflict during this period was between Tikal and Calakmul, who fought a series of wars over the course of more than half a millennium, each of these states declined during the Terminal Classic and were eventually abandoned. This is sometimes seen as a period of increased chaos and warfare, the Postclassic is often viewed as a period of cultural decline. However, it was a time of technological advancement in architecture, engineering, metallurgy came into use for jewelry and some tools, with new alloys and techniques being developed in a few centuries. The Postclassic was a period of rapid movement and population growth — especially in Central Mexico post-1200 —, for instance, in Yucatán, dual rulership apparently replaced the more theocratic governments of Classic times, whilst oligarchic councils operated in much of Central Mexico. Likewise, it appears that the wealthy pochteca and military orders became more powerful than was apparently the case in Classic times and this afforded some Mesoamericans a degree of social mobility. The Toltec for a time dominated central Mexico in the 11th–13th century, the northern Maya were for a time united under Mayapan, and Oaxaca was briefly united by Mixtec rulers in the 11th–12th centuries. The Aztec Empire arose in the early 15th century and appeared to be on a path to asserting dominance over the Valley of Mexico region not seen since Teotihuacan. Spain was the first European power to contact Mesoamerica, however, and its conquistadores, by the 15th century, the Mayan revival in Yucatán and southern Guatemala and the flourishing of Aztec imperialism evidently enabled a renaissance of fine arts and science. Examples include the Pueblan-Mexica style in pottery, codex illumination, and goldwork, the flourishing of Nahua poetry, arguably, the Post-Classic continued until the conquest of the last independent native state of Mesoamerica, Tayasal, in 1697. Mesoamerican civilization was a network of different cultures

5.
Mayapan
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Mayapan was the political and cultural capital of the Maya in the Yucatán Peninsula during the Late Post-Classic period from the 1220s until the 1440s. Estimates of the city population are 15, 000–17,000 persons, and the site has more than 4000 structures within the city walls. The site has been surveyed and excavated by archeological teams, beginning in 1939, five years of work was done by a team in the 1950s. Since 2000, a collaborative Mexican-United States team has been conducting excavations and recovery at the site, Mayapan is 4.2 square kilometers and has over 4000 structures, most of them residences, packed into this compound within the city walls. Built-up areas extend a half kilometer beyond the city walls in all directions, the stone perimeter wall has twelve gates, including seven major gates with vaulted entrances. The wall is 9.1 km long and is ovate with a pointed northeast corner. The ceremonial center of the site is located in Square Q of the grid in the center of the wider western half of the walled enclosure. The ceremonial center has a tightly packed cluster of temples, colonnaded halls, oratories, shrines, sanctuaries, altars, a. L. Smith, an archeologist with the Carnegie Institute, estimated 10–12,000 people lived within the walled city. According to Dr. Bradley Russells survey outside the city walls, there were numerous additional dwellings and his survey results are posted online at www. mayapanperiphery. net. People living outside of the city engaged in agriculture, animal-raising. Russell also found a colonnaded hall outside the city wall, revealing much is still to be discovered regarding the complexity of this urban landscape, the Temple of Kukulcan, a large pyramid also known as the Castillo, is the main temple in Mayapan. It is located immediately to the east of the Cenote Chen Mul, in form, the Temple of Kukulcan is a radial four-staircase temple with nine terraces, it is generally similar to the Temple of Kukulcan at the earlier site of Chichen Itza. However, the Mayapan temple appears to be an imitation of the one at Chichen Itza. For example, most or all of the roofs in Mayapan have collapsed. Other major temples in the center include three round ones, which are unusual for the Maya area and are also linked to the deity Kukulkan/Quetzalcoatl in his wind god aspect. Unlike Chichen Itza, Mayapan has no ballcourts, the houses are often arranged in small patio groups surrounding small courtyards. Houses were built haphazardly without organized streets, lanes wind among the residences and walls. The residential areas of the site contain many cenotes, perhaps as many as 40, Settlement was the most dense in the southwestern part of the city where cenotes are more numerous

6.
Maya stelae
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Maya stelae are monuments that were fashioned by the Maya civilization of ancient Mesoamerica. They consist of tall sculpted stone shafts and are associated with low circular stones referred to as altars. Many stelae were sculpted in low relief, although plain monuments are found throughout the Maya region, the earliest dated stela to have been found in situ in the Maya lowlands was recovered from the great city of Tikal in Guatemala. During the Classic Period almost every Maya kingdom in the southern lowlands raised stelae in its ceremonial centre, stelae became closely associated with the concept of divine kingship and declined at the same time as this institution. The production of stelae by the Maya had its origin around 400 BC and continued through to the end of the Classic Period, around 900, although some monuments were reused in the Postclassic. The major city of Calakmul in Mexico raised the greatest number of stelae known from any Maya city, at least 166, hundreds of stelae have been recorded in the Maya region, displaying a wide stylistic variation. Many are upright slabs of limestone sculpted on one or more faces, with available surfaces sculpted with figures carved in relief, stelae in a few sites display a much more three-dimensional appearance where locally available stone permits, such as at Copán and Toniná. Plain stelae do not appear to have been painted nor overlaid with stucco decoration, stelae were essentially stone banners raised to glorify the king and record his deeds, although the earliest examples depict mythological scenes. This influence receded in the 5th century although some minor Teotihuacan references continued to be used, in the late 5th century, Maya kings began to use stelae to mark the end of calendrical cycles. In the Late Classic, imagery linked to the Mesoamerican ballgame was introduced, by the Terminal Classic, the institution of divine kingship declined, and Maya kings began to be depicted with their subordinate lords. As the Classic Period came to an end, stelae ceased to be erected, the function of the Maya stela was central to the ideology of Maya kingship from the very beginning of the Classic Period through to the very end of the Terminal Classic. According to Stuart this may refer to the stelae as stone versions of standards that once stood in prominent places in Maya city centres. The name of the modern Lacandon Maya is likely to be a Colonial corruption of this word, Maya stelae were often arranged to impress the viewer, forming lines or other arrangements within the ceremonial centre of the city. An alternative interpretation of these altars is that they were in fact thrones that were used by rulers during ceremonial events, archaeologists believe that they probably also served as ritual pedestals for incense burners, ceremonial fires and other offerings. The core purpose of a stela was to glorify the king, many Maya stelae depict only the king of the city, and describe his actions with hieroglyphic script. Even when the individual depicted is not the king himself, the text or scene usually relates the subject to the king. Openly declaring the importance and power of the king to the community, the stela portrayed his wealth, prestige and ancestry, and depicted him wielding the symbols of military and divine power. Stelae were raised to commemorate important events, especially at the end of a katun 20-year cycle of the Maya calendar, the stela did not just mark off a period of time, it has been argued that it physically embodied that period of time

7.
Maya civilization
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The Maya civilization developed in an area that encompasses southeastern Mexico, all of Guatemala and Belize, and the western portions of Honduras and El Salvador. The Archaic period, prior to 2000 BC, saw the first developments in agriculture, the first Maya cities developed around 750 BC, and by 500 BC these cities possessed monumental architecture, including large temples with elaborate stucco façades. Hieroglyphic writing was being used in the Maya region by the 3rd century BC, in the Late Preclassic a number of large cities developed in the Petén Basin, and Kaminaljuyu rose to prominence in the Guatemalan Highlands. Beginning around 250 AD, the Classic period is defined as when the Maya were raising sculpted monuments with Long Count dates. This period saw the Maya civilization develop a number of city-states linked by a complex trade network. In the Maya Lowlands two great rivals, Tikal and Calakmul, became powerful, the Classic period also saw the intrusive intervention of the central Mexican city of Teotihuacan in Maya dynastic politics. In the 9th century, there was a political collapse in the central Maya region, resulting in internecine warfare, the abandonment of cities. The Postclassic period saw the rise of Chichen Itza in the north, in the 16th century, the Spanish Empire colonized the Mesoamerican region, and a lengthy series of campaigns saw the fall of Nojpetén, the last Maya city in 1697. Classic period rule was centred on the concept of the divine king, kingship was patrilineal, and power would normally pass to the eldest son. A prospective king was expected to be a successful war leader. Maya politics was dominated by a system of patronage, although the exact political make-up of a kingdom varied from city-state to city-state. By the Late Classic, the aristocracy had greatly increased, resulting in the reduction in the exclusive power of the divine king. Maya cities tended to expand haphazardly, and the city centre would be occupied by ceremonial and administrative complexes, different parts of a city would often be linked by causeways. The principal architecture of the city consisted of palaces, pyramid-temples, ceremonial ballcourts, the Maya elite were literate, and developed a complex system of hieroglyphic writing that was the most advanced in the pre-Columbian Americas. The Maya recorded their history and ritual knowledge in screenfold books, there are also a great many examples of Maya text found on stelae and ceramics. The Maya developed a complex series of interlocking ritual calendars. As a part of their religion, the Maya practised human sacrifice, the Maya civilization developed within the Mesoamerican cultural area, which covers a region that spreads from northern Mexico southwards into Central America. Mesoamerica was one of six cradles of civilization worldwide, the Mesoamerican area gave rise to a series of cultural developments that included complex societies, agriculture, cities, monumental architecture, writing, and calendrical systems

8.
Spanish conquest of the Maya
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The conquest of the Maya was hindered by their politically fragmented state. Spanish and native tactics and technology differed greatly, among the Maya, ambush was a favoured tactic, in response to the use of Spanish cavalry, the highland Maya took to digging pits and lining them with wooden stakes. Spanish weaponry included broadswords, rapiers, lances, pikes, halberds, crossbows, matchlocks, Maya warriors fought with flint-tipped spears, bows and arrows, stones, and wooden swords with inset obsidian blades, and wore padded cotton armour to protect themselves. Before the conquest, Maya territory contained a number of competing kingdoms, many conquistadors viewed the Maya as infidels who needed to be forcefully converted and pacified, disregarding the achievements of their civilization. Several Spanish expeditions followed in 1517 and 1519, making landfall on various parts of the Yucatán coast, the Spanish conquest of the Maya was a prolonged affair, the Maya kingdoms resisted integration into the Spanish Empire with such tenacity that their defeat took almost two centuries. In Mexico, the Maya occupied territory now incorporated into the states of Chiapas, Tabasco, Campeche, Quintana Roo, the Yucatán Peninsula is bordered by the Caribbean Sea to the east and by the Gulf of Mexico to the north and west. It incorporates the modern Mexican states of Yucatán, Quintana Roo and Campeche, the portion of the state of Tabasco, most of the Guatemalan department of Petén. Most of the peninsula is formed by a vast plain with few hills or mountains, in contrast, the northeastern portion of the peninsula is characterised by forested swamplands. The northern portion of the peninsula lacks rivers, except for the Champotón River – all other rivers are located in the south, a chain of fourteen lakes runs across the central drainage basin of Petén. The largest lake is Lake Petén Itza, it measures 32 by 5 kilometres, a broad savannah extends south of the central lakes. To the north of the lakes region bajos become more frequent, to the south the plain gradually rises towards the Guatemalan Highlands. Dense forest covers northern Petén and Belize, most of Quintana Roo, southern Campeche, further north, the vegetation turns to lower forest consisting of dense scrub. Chiapas occupies the extreme southeast of Mexico, it possesses 260 kilometres of Pacific coastline, Chiapas features two principal highland regions, to the south is the Sierra Madre de Chiapas and in central Chiapas are the Montañas Centrales. They are separated by the Depresión Central, containing the drainage basin of the Grijalva River, the Sierra Madre highlands gain altitude from west to east, with the highest mountains near the Guatemalan border. The Central Highlands of Chiapas rise sharply to the north of the Grijalva, to an altitude of 2,400 metres. They are cut by valleys running parallel to the Pacific coast. At the eastern end of the Central Highlands is the Lacandon Forest, the littoral zone of Soconusco lies to the south of the Sierra Madre de Chiapas, and consists of a narrow coastal plain and the foothills of the Sierra Madre. The Maya had never been unified as an empire, but by the time the Spanish arrived Maya civilization was thousands of years old and had already seen the rise

Mayapan (Màayapáan in Modern Maya), (in Spanish Mayapán) is a Pre-Columbian Maya site a couple of kilometers south of …

Temple of Kukulcan at Mayapan

A panorama of the Mayapan excavations from the top of the Castle of King Kukulcan.

The Temple Redondo with a Mayan carving in the foreground.

This mural partially survives in the Sala de los Frescos in Mayapán. In it appears a solar disk with the figure of a deity, possibly representing one of the transit of Venus that happened in years 1152 or 1275.

The ecliptic is the circular path on the celestial sphere that the Sun appears to follow over the course of a year; it …

The plane of Earth's orbit projected in all directions forms the reference plane known as the ecliptic. Here, it is shown projected outward (gray) to the celestial sphere, along with Earth's equator and polar axis (green). The plane of the ecliptic intersects the celestial sphere along a great circle (black), the same circle on which the Sun seems to move as Earth orbits it. The intersections of the ecliptic and the equator on the celestial sphere are the vernal and autumnal equinoxes (red), where the Sun seems to cross the celestial equator.